Property is Slow – And that’s the Secret Sauce

I recently explained to one of my teenagers that I am from the TV watching era where if our favourite sitcom finished with a ‘cliffhanger’, we had to wait a whole week till the next episode.  He turned to look at me like I had ‘rocks in my head’. All he knows, is a 4 second wait for Netflix to automatically load the next episode.

We live in a world of immediacy – food delivered in 10 mins, groceries in 15. Breaking news now happens every 12 minutes. A headline at 8am is a podcast and twitter storm by 10!

We are so used to a fast-paced world, that when property investment dares to operate at a glacial pace, some people get nervous. “Why isn’t it doing more?” “Why hasn’t the value jumped?”
But here’s the truth: property is slow on purpose — and that’s exactly why it works.

In fact, the very slowness that frustrates some of us, is the very thing that protects, grows, and compounds wealth. It’s the antidote to reactionary investing. It’s the refuge from volatility. It’s the secret advantage of those investors that are patient.

The Fast Game vs. The Property Game

Investors often come to property investment with a mindset shaped by other asset classes —shares, equities, and crypto to name some. In those worlds, speed is a virtue. The faster something moves, the more potential (and risk) it appears to offer.

But property isn’t built for speed. It’s a real asset, rooted in the ground, governed by contracts, consent processes, construction timelines, and lease agreements. A building couldn’t care less if your news feed has gone into a tailspin. A tenant doesn’t suddenly vacate because the Reserve Bank adjusted the OCR by 25bps. Nor did a tenant suddenly vacate on the back of Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement.

That’s a good thing. Because when we accept property’s natural pace, we can stop chasing the next big thing… and start owning the big, boring, brilliant thing: a stable, cash-yielding, inflation-resistant income stream backed by a tangible asset.

Why Slowness = Strength

Let’s dig deeper into why the slowness of property is not something just to be tolerated — it’s strategically valuable.

Firstly, it creates behavioural resilience.
The best investors aren’t always the most intelligent — they’re the most consistent. Property’s illiquidity acts as a built-in discipline tool. You don’t have the option to sell on a whim, panic at a headline, or follow a friend into investing in a meme stock. And that’s a good thing.

Secondly, It prioritises fundamentals over fads
A quality childcare centre on a 15-year lease with government subsidies behind the rent roll may not make the cover of a property magazine. But it does something better: it pays reliable income, usually indexed to inflation, year after year.

Thirdly, It forces deliberate decision-making.
Because you can’t jump in and out of commercial property, you (and your advisors) must make decisions with intent. Every acquisition is modelled. Every tenant is analysed. Every risk is considered. That kind of discipline creates an environment where long-term value is baked into the purchase, not hoped for later.

The Illiquidity Premium (And Why You Want It)

This is a term that institutional investors are fond of.  In simple terms, it means you can often earn more in property simply because you can’t sell it quickly.

Why does this matter? Because with liquidity comes volatility. Assets that trade daily are subject to mood swings, herd behaviour (hype and social trends), and short-termism. But with commercial property, investors are compensated for that lack of liquidity in the form of higher yields over a longer term, stable valuations, and are afforded the time to correct mistakes.

In Defence of Doing “Nothing”

Here’s a paradox: sometimes the best move in property is to do absolutely nothing.

Buy well. Structure well. Let it sit.  This is especially true in our yield-driven specialist sector funds. Equally, when you own an industrial asset that may not be the newest and shiniest building, but it is leased long-term to a national brand tenant with fixed annual increases, the smartest thing to do is often to leave it alone. Let it compound. Don’t meddle. Just manage well, monitor risk, and keep the income flowing. Often property’s genius is in its passivity — it can reward those who build and wait, not those who over-tinker.

Timing vs. Time in the Market

We often get asked: “When’s the best time to invest?”

The honest answer? The best time was probably years ago. The second-best time is when you find a good asset, at a fair value, that matches to your financial goals — and you’re prepared to hold.
Trying to perfectly time the market — especially with property — is a fool’s errand. Why? Because the real wealth is made while you hold the property, not when you buy and sell. That’s where rental income compounds through built-in uplifts.  That’s where debt gets paid down. That’s where value is added through lease renewals, market rent reviews, or asset improvements.

Know What You’re Buying: Income, Growth, or Both

One of the reasons we offer a range of property investment products — from high-yield commercial property funds to growth-focused repositioning funds and bespoke search and acquisition services for individuals — is because investors have different time horizons and capital objectives.  But no matter which path you take, the mindset must be similar: play the long game.

Property won’t thrill you like a stock spike. But it also won’t vanish overnight. It anchors you to reality. It produces income. It provides options — equity release, intergenerational transfer, portfolio leverage. And it does all of this slowly, predictably, and powerfully.

Property doesn’t reward speed. It rewards vision. It rewards patience. And most of all, it rewards those who can look past the noise and focus on the fundamentals. So yes — property is slow….and that’s exactly why it works.